


Prolonged Contact

by jupeboxhero



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jupeboxhero/pseuds/jupeboxhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jane runs over someone in the desert, she ends up with a rather cranky alien on her hands and makes a few discoveries about the world and about herself.</p><p>This was written for the 2015 Starfrost exchange as a gift for Subjunctive. It features a combination of what-if-Loki-was-cast-to-Earth AU, female!Loki, and something-special-about-Jane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prolonged Contact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subjunctive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/gifts).



> This is my Starfrost Exchange gift for Subjunctive. I decided to go with genderswapped Loki and the something-special-about-Jane prompt. There's also a hint of pretending-to-be-a-couple but it ended up being pretty gen in the end. I hope you enjoy it!

Lights shined in the distance. Jane shifted nervously and glanced at the woman next to her, who was slowly getting ready to dash out. It seemed like the jeep was taking forever to get to them but all the same Jane felt like they didn't have enough time. Maybe this was a bad idea. It seemed like a terrible idea when Loki first suggested it, but weeks of making do without her equipment and research had worn her down. And then Loki told her that S.H.I.E.L.D. had moved most of her devices elsewhere. They weren't even using them at the base.

"Get ready," Loki said. 

Jane nodded and moved so that she was out of the way but kept one finger lightly touching Loki's hand. As soon as she broke contact, Loki would start to shapeshift. She still wondered what that was all about.

"Now." 

Loki ran out in front of the oncoming vehicle. The driver slammed the breaks. Even though she knew what was coming, Jane still screamed when the jeep collided into Loki with a thud. She ran to Loki's side just as the S.H.I.E.L.D. workers got out of the jeep. 

"Are you okay?" she whispered. Loki grimaced. She was curled up, hugging her ribs. Her skin was completely scarred and blue already and Jane carefully positioned herself to block the driver's view. She hoped Loki was just faking pain like she said she would. _Honestly, she should be used to it by now anyway._ The thought made Jane feel a little more reassured. 

"What the hell were you two thinking?" said the driver. "You shouldn't be out here." 

_Thanks for worrying._ "I-I know. We know. We're just- I think she's hurt. Please, help!" 

The driver pushed Jane roughly aside. When she saw Loki she started and tried to call out to the passenger. Loki grabbed her by the collar and pulled her down. The passenger turned to run back to the jeep but stopped when the driver screamed. Jane froze. Loki was holding a dagger of ice to the driver's neck. 

"Back away from the vehicle." The passenger took slow steps towards Jane. Loki looked at Jane, who stared wide-eyed back. "Help the girl get comfortable, dear." Jane jerked into motion and set to work with her side of the plan. She took the passenger's ID cards and shoved them into her pocket. Then she hand-cuffed the woman and led her over off the road. Loki did the same to the driver. There were frost burns around the driver's cuffs and Jane stopped to examine them. The skin felt cold but still soft to the touch.

"She's fine. Don’t waste time."  
Jane glared at Loki and got into the jeep. Her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath. The vehicle bounced slightly when Loki got in. "Put your seat belt on," Jane snapped. She waited to hear a click before she started driving. 

For the next few moments she just listened to the sounds of crunching gravel and her slowly calming heartbeat. "You didn't tell me you were going to threaten them like that." 

There was a pause. "Pray tell, what did you think subduing them entailed?"

"I don't know. I didn't think about that." Her face got hot from embarrassment. She had been too busy worrying about sneaking around S.H.I.E.L.D. to think it through.

"Your lack of thought is hardly my fault."

"Shut up." She gripped the wheel and looked straight ahead. They had another twenty minutes of road to travel before she would need to drive off the gravel and onto the dirt path leading into the base. Her stomach turned as she thought about the stopping at the gate and handing IDs. She struggled to remember what the passenger looked like. Did they even have the same hair color? Loki claimed that she had picked them carefully but would it be enough to pass the guard?

"Jane." Loki touched her forearm. She watched as the blue faded away but she didn’t respond. "Jane, you've never done this sort of thing before, have you?"

She shook her head. Loki's hand curled around her arm and squeezed it lightly. "If everything goes well, then the worse part should be over and there will be no further need for threats."

"And if everything doesn't go well?"

Loki laughed. "I'll let you sit next to me in Valhalla. I'd hate for you to feel awkward, after all." When Jane gave her a worried glance Loki continued, "In all seriousness, you should be fine. All you'll need to do is let go of me and tell everyone how the blue, red-eyed demon scared you.”

Jane frowned. She wasn’t sure what S.H.I.E.L.D. would do with Loki. The image of the ice dagger leapt to her mind. She wasn’t sure what Loki would do to S.H.I.E.L.D. and she didn’t want to find out. "I won't let go of you. I don't want you to get hurt either."

"I'm touched." 

Jane rolled her eyes. "Are you sure they won't catch us at the gate?" She winced when the words escaped her. She had already asked this and she knew the answer but the question kept running through her mind. 

"No." There was a hard edge to word. 

"I'm sorry. I'm just-"

"It's perfectly reasonable to be nervous, Jane." Loki took a breath and her voice softened. "Look, do you like feeling stupid?"

The question threw her. "No,” she said warily. When she glanced over, Loki was looking at her earnestly.

"Most people don't. If anyone questions you, question them right back. The people here aren’t warriors. They won’t want to risk stumbling into the unknown. They want to stick to whatever simple job they’ve been assigned and everything else is someone else’s responsibility."

"So, that's it? I just say, 'Why are you talking to me?' and they'll just go away?" This sounded worrying. On one hand, Jane supposed S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn’t be the most transparent organization to work for but, on the other hand, she really hoped that an organization with so much power wouldn’t be so easily duped.

"Embarrassment is a highly underrated weapon." Jane remained skeptical so Loki added, “This base is a joke. They’re protecting a useless rock that can’t be moved. Their best and brightest aren’t going to be here.”

Jane had more concerns but she didn’t have any more time to argue. They could see the lights of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base now. Jane straightened up in her seat and prepared. She turned off the road and onto the dirt. The gate was only a few feet away. She wrestled the ID card out of her pocket as she slowed the jeep down to a stop. Loki handed her the driver's ID and squeezed her hand. Jane gave her a nervous smile before lowering the window for the security guard.

She smiled at the guard, held out the ID's, and said, "Hi!" Her voice sounded painfully high even to her own ears. Loki rubbed her arm. On the bright side, she was pretty sure that her voice always sounded like that when she greeted armed guards. The guard smiled back. He studied the cards and then looked at each of their faces. Jane’s heart thudded in her chest. Then the guard nodded, and handed the cards back. 

"Thank you," Jane whispered. She let the jeep coast forward as the gate lifted up.

"No problem." 

No one stopped them as Loki directed Jane to an appropriate parking spot. Jane hadn't seen the base in a few weeks and she was surprised at how empty it already was. "Like I said, the initial excitement has died down and they're moving on to more pressing matters." They clipped their ID's to their shirts and got out of the jeep. Loki quickly walked around the jeep and grabbed Jane's hand. She led them into the main building.

There was a small lab set up inside the building. Some of the equipment, like the twitchy floating touch-screens that were scattered across the room, caused Jane's breath to catch in her throat. She briefly dreamed what she could do with the razor-edge tech that S.H.I.E.L.D. must be hoarding. Not everything looked fresh from Stark laboratories though. For example, the spectrofluorometer sprawled out on a table looked like it had been taken right out of her old university's lab. There was also an ancient, brick of a laptop set inside a fume hood. She hoped this relic was just an eccentricity of one of the scientists.

White lab coats were hanging on a wall nearby and they each took one. The door on the other side of the lab opened up into a large open space. The ground was bare dirt and there wasn't a ceiling in this part of the building. The sky above them was thick with clouds. Down below, in the center of a crater, something was embedded in the earth. Loki squeezed her hand hard. Jane looked at her but the other woman was focused on the satellite. 

A few employees walked around the crater on their way between rooms. The murmur of people could be heard from one of the rooms, but the crater itself was empty except for a lone techie waving a metal probe at the satellite. They followed the foot-path in the dirt down to the center of the crater. Feeling more in her own element, Jane snatched a clipboard off a desk and began looking it over. She couldn’t let go of Loki so she had to awkwardly flip through the pages with one hand. It looked like a lot of context-less noise readings. She wondered why anyone even bothered printing it out. 

The techie turned at the sound of rustling pages. "What are you doing?"

Jane snapped, "Working.” Her voice was laced with real irritation. She had hoped that S.H.I.E.L.D. was actual progress beyond stealing other people's work equipment and wasting paper. "What have we gotten from the samples?" 

"Um, I think Sam said the soil samples-" 

"Not the soil. The satellite." 

The man looked confused and a bit worried. He glanced at Loki who said, "She's little cranky. She just found out that her favorite pens are being discontinued." Jane jumped inwardly. She had complained about that once, maybe twice, two weeks ago. She hadn't thought Loki was paying any attention.

"Oh, those InkFriends, right? What’s-his-face has been crying about that for weeks."

"They're good pens," Jane said, feeling oddly defensive.

The techie smiled apologetically and said, "The suits still aren't letting us touch it yet." He picked up a mug and started walking away. "I think they're waiting on one of the big guys to come down here first." 

One of the big guys? Stark? That radiation specialist Erik was talking about? Jane made a face. "Why? You don't need to be a 'big guy' to scrap some samples off a dumb rock." The techie either didn't hear her or just ignored her as he left. 

"This is ridiculous." Jane huffed and threw the clipboard back onto the desk. Now she remembered why she had decided to work privately with her own meager budget rather than sign-up with a corporation.

Loki tugged her closer to the satellite. Now that she was able to focus on it, she could see that it wasn't a rock at all. The satellite was a hammer with a head of a decorated, silver-colored metal and a handle wrapped in brown leather. She frowned. She didn't see how a hammer was going to help Loki get home. Loki's face was blank as she tentatively reached out for the handle. Nothing happened when her hand wrapped around the handle. She gave it an experimental tug. It didn't budge. She wrenched her hand away from Jane’s and tried to lift the hammer in earnest. Jane's eyes widened and she tried to touch Loki but her hand was slapped away. 

The seconds seemed to stretch into hours for Jane. Any moment now Loki was going to turn very obviously blue and no matter how relaxed there was no way that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to let a blue alien leave freely leave their base. She scanned the area but no one came out to investigate. There was a man standing in a doorway with his back towards them and Jane prayed that he didn't turn around. She reached out for Loki and said, "It’s not working. You said we would leave if it didn’t work."

At first Jane thought Loki wasn't going to let go but then she scowled and said, "Completely useless." Jane took her hand and slowly walked back to the lab. A man entered the crater and paused to watch them. Jane smiled sheepishly at him. His expression remained hard but he continued walking. She gripped Loki's hand and began to move faster. By the time they got back to the jeep she felt like her whole body was going to shake itself to pieces. She was sure they would be stopped and arrested at any moment but they exited the gate as easily as they had entered. As soon as they returned to the gravel road Loki yanked her hand away. At first Jane’s hand reached out involuntarily, but she placed it on the steering wheel. It felt strange driving with two hands again. 

The drive back was quiet. Whenever Jane looked at Loki, the other woman was glaring off into space, her jaw set and her hands shaking slightly. Jane had a lot of questions but experience told her that she was only going to get snide baiting if she asked now. Instead she checked the rear-view mirror every few minutes and focused on driving straight.

"Here." Jane registered the sound but she thought Loki was just muttering to herself until she said, "Stop here, you twit!"

She hit the brakes and they both went jerked forward as the vehicle halted to a rough stop. She turned to tell Loki to fuck off but she had already gotten out and was walking away.

"Wait!" Jane tripped out of the jeep and ran after Loki. "Aren't we going to untie them?" She could barely make out the shapes of the two S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists in the dark. 

"Why?"

"Because they'll be stuck here without help for who knows how long if we don't." 

"Let S.H.I.E.L.D. take care it. I think they could use the work, don't you?" 

"But-"

Loki whipped around and said, "You're free to go and get arrested by yourself, Jane. I won't stop you."

Jane clammed up and glared at Loki’s back as they continued back to the SUV. _You can’t even drive, you twit._ She realized that Loki wasn't wearing a lab coat anymore but she still was. She tore it off, unclipped the ID, and threw them both to ground behind her. Pretty soon, she couldn't rely on the faint light from the jeep anymore and she placed a hand on Loki's back to guide herself. Loki stiffened and then grabbed her hand and pulled her along without saying anything. When they found the SUV they separated again and Jane drove them back to Puente Antiguo in silence.

She parked the SUV inside of Smith's Motors. She didn't know how to feel about what they had done. The whole trip back she kept cycling through different moods. At first she felt smug for sneaking past S.H.I.E.L.D. after they had stolen so much from her but then the terror of the inevitable consequences would rush through her. They were definitely going to find her and she had no idea what was going to happen. She had been banking on Loki figuring out a way to Asgard. Now that it was clear that wasn't going to happen anytime soon she was stuck calculating how long assault charges would land her in jail. After a while, the fear wore her out and a pleasant apathy settled in its place until she started feeling smug again. 

As far as she could tell, Loki had spent the ride taste-testing different flavors of anger. One moment she seemed to be caught in a shaking but introspective anger and then, the next time Jane looked at her, she was completely still and her red eyes were wide open. And then there would be those tense periods when everything from the rattling of the dashboard to the Jane's mere existence seemed to irritate her and temperature would plummet until Jane could see her own breath. Sometimes Loki hissed out a word or two but Jane couldn't make them out over the noise of the gravel. 

Once they parked, Loki got out and slammed the door. Jane just rubbed her hands and her nose in an attempt to warm them back up. Her fingers burned as she breathed hot air onto them. Hopefully, Loki didn't freeze anything until it shattered again. She only ever did it accidentally but the accidents seemed to anger her more than shame her.

After a few moments, Jane finally got out and walked to her trailer. She heard a tell-tale snapping sound and Loki cursed. She jogged over to see was it was this time. 

There was a large crack in the wood of the trailer door. Thankfully it seemed like Loki had stopped herself in time and the crack didn't go through to the other side of the door. Jane shrugged. She supposed it was less secure now but that wasn't saying much. Darcy had accidentally ripped the locked door open once and she wasn’t exactly Captain America. 

"It's all right," Jane said, reassuringly. She was rewarded with a glare. She sighed. "Okay. Be that way."

Loki stood still for a beat before she turned slowly to face Jane. "Be what way?"

Suddenly, Jane felt very tired. "Nothing." 

"Oh, no, if you have something to say, princess, please say it." Loki took a step towards her.

"I don't have anything to say." She tried to step around Loki to the door but Loki blocked her.

"I think you do."

"No, I don't." She tried to step around Loki to the door but she was blocked. She gave up. "Okay. Fine. I understand that you're angry-"

"Do you?"

"Yes! I do." She ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know what happened back there with that hammer-thing but it's clear that it made you angry, okay?"

"Do you know what that 'hammer-thing' is?" 

Jane paused. It was rare for Loki to volunteer information but it sounded like she might. "No..."

"That thing is my precious brother's pride and joy. He, and he alone, is able to lift it." She stepped around Jane and stared off towards S.H.I.E.L.D. "I've never been able to make it so much as budge," she spat the words out.

"So, maybe your brother is here too?" Jane offered. 

Loki sneered. "Thor doesn't have a quiet bone in his body. We would have been able to hear him bellowing from the other side of this dung-pile of a rock if he were here." 

"Okay. Why do you think it's here?"

Loki didn't respond and just glared at S.H.I.E.L.D. Jane rubbed her arms. It was getting colder.

"Do you think it's some sort of," Jane said, carefully, "insult?"

Silence.

Jane frowned. Was her brother that petty? Loki rarely talked about him, except when she was feeling particularly bitter. "Maybe he wants it to help you somehow." 

"Help me?" Loki focused back on her. "How does a weapon I can't even lift help me?"

"I don't know. But we should stay open-minded. We'll figure it out."

Loki laughed. "Oooh, will we?" She stepped closer. "Tell me, Jane," she looked at the trailer and the empty lab, "what exactly have you figured out after all this time? You say that you have lost years of research to S.H.I.E.L.D. but I have been trying to understand what of value you've actually lost."

Jane sputtered. "How dare you!" She searched for words. "I'll have you know that I'm an accomplished physicist. I have done a lot for my age in my field and I'm only just starting." She tried to figure out how to explain her published papers, the conferences, her theories but they all seemed so insignificant in the face of someone who was used to quick interstellar travel. 

Loki brought her face close to Jane’s. Her red eyes pierced her in place. "You've nothing of substance." 

Jane slapped her hard. Her hand stung and she held it in her other hand as she backed away to the trailer. "I'm going to bed."

"Well." Loki rubbed her cheek but took the slap gracefully. In fact, she seemed almost chipper now and Jane felt a surge of rage. "As ever, I won't be joining you. Please, don't take it personally."

"Oh, my god!" Jane ran inside and slammed the door behind her. She winced when she heard the crack spread further but didn't stop to inspect the damage. She kicked off her shoes and went to her room. She made more noise than was necessary as she prepared for bed and part of her felt silly but not enough to quiet down. When she crawled into bed she wasn’t tired anymore. She lay in bed wide-awake for hours before she finally managed to sleep.

When she woke up she knew Loki wasn't in the trailer because she was drenched in sweat. She peeled off the blanket and started to get ready for the day. She needed to figure out what they were going to do now, preferably before S.H.I.E.L.D. came knocking on her door. The events of the night played through her head and she tried to find some clue in them. Something to guide her. Eventually her mind wandered to all the different crimes she committed and the possible punishments she might face. While she was eating her cornflakes, she imagined herself holding hands with Loki, surrounded by angry S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. As they were dramatically torn apart, Loki turned blue and was dragged off to be experimented on. Maybe they would experiment on Jane too since she was apparently the only thing that made Loki shape shift. At least she would still be contributing to science somehow.

Jane stopped eating. After Loki gave up on the hammer and let Jane take her hand, she hadn't been blue. Normally she shifted in a matter of seconds. She should shape-shifted by the time she gave up on the hammer. That meant the hammer could help Loki... except she couldn't lift it. 

Something nagged at Jane but she couldn't pin it down. She and the hammer must have something in common but what? It was from Asgard but she wasn't. But were her parents? She thought about what Loki had said weeks ago. Erik had still been there and all of them had been in the lab trying to figure out what to do with the blue alien she had run over in the desert. Erik and Darcy had almost hurt themselves trying to move Loki, but Jane didn’t feel anything painful when she touched her. Instead Loki turned human-looking and the air around her had warmed up. Jane had wondered aloud about it. Loki had sneered. (“Maybe you’re not fully Midgardian. Was you’re mother popular with the strange men about town?”) Erik was livid but the Jane brushed the insult off easily. She could barely remember her mom. She was excited to have a real alien in her hands.

Her mom had left some jewelry behind. If a hammer could work, Jane didn’t see why a necklace couldn’t. She went into her room and dragged several boxes out from under her bed. After a few minutes of searching she found it. She shoved it into her pocket and went looking for Loki.

She wasn't in the lab. The SUV was still parked, but that was no surprise. She checked the roof and scanned the surrounding area for the blue jerk but there was nothing unusual around. She started to worry. Did S.H.I.E.L.D. capture her already? But wouldn't they have collected Jane too?

Without any other options, Jane decided to check town. Puente Antiguo was basically two streets in the middle of nowhere so unless Loki was squirreling away in a dumpster she wouldn't be hard to find. At least, that's what Jane had thought. It took her a full hour of driving up and down and stopping and checking different alleys before she spotted a figure leaning against a wall across from the diner. It was such an obvious place; she wondered if Loki had been dodging out of view whenever she had passed. She huffed and parked.

"Hello, Jane." The shit-eating grin told Jane that her suspicions might just be right. 

"Why are you out here?" 

Loki shrugged. "I'm enjoying the sights and sounds of this...," she waved vaguely at the street, "fine little town." She was wearing gloves and sunglasses, and her face was plastered with foundation. The scars still ran across her features but otherwise she looked like an average, if unfortunately make-up obsessed, human. 

"You look silly. I didn't think I had this much make-up."

"You didn't." She pushed off the wall and began walking away.

"Wait." Loki stopped and faced Jane. "Are you leaveing?" Jane said. She wasn't sure what to think if Loki did want to leave. It might be for her the best to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. but Jane felt like they weren't finished.

"Perhaps. You might want to consider it yourself, given last night's events." 

"Right." Jane stood awkwardly. She wanted to say something else but she decided to pull her mother's necklace out of her pocket instead. "Here. I want you to try this first."

Loki looked unimpressed by the mess of metal but she let Jane slip the chain over her neck anyway. Jane pressed the silver pendant against Loki's throat and said, "Do you feel anything? Is it working?" She didn't wait for response. Instead she tipped the sunglasses down so she could look at Loki's eyes. They were green. She grinned. "Yeah, it works. Look at that." 

She watched as Loki pulled off a glove with her teeth and picked up the pendant. She pulled on different strands of metal and tried to make sense of it.

Jane bit her lip and said, "I broke it when I was little. It's supposed to be a mountain range according to my dad."

"Where did you get it?"

"My mom left it. I guess you were right. Maybe I'm part Asgardian."

"I was joking," Loki said distantly. She dangled the pendant by a single rod and seemed to search for something.

"I know, but-"

Suddenly, there was a series of snaps and clicks as Loki worked quickly on the pendant. Jane couldn't follow what she was doing but once the clicking stopped Loki held up her work. The pendant didn't look like a mountain range. It looked like three silver triangles interwoven into each other. Loki pressed down on one triangle and the whole thing clicked and triangles shifted into a new orientation. 

"It's from Asgard."

"No. Not everything valuable comes from Asgard." Loki clicked the pendant a few more times and continued, "In fact, I'd say that Asgard's finest possessions don't come from Asgard."

"So, where's it from?"

"Vanaheim." Click. "Let's talk more over breakfast. My treat." Loki tucked the pendant into her shirt and flashed a blue card at Jane. 

"You! That's mine." Jane tried to snatch the card but Loki held it out of reach. They walked across the street to the diner.

"It's mine. I found it."

"Yeah, in my wallet."

They sat down in a booth together and Isabela came to take their orders. She gave Jane a gentle smile that immediately disappeared when she focused on Loki. As Isabela left, Jane snatched a pile of napkins out the dispenser on the table. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and got ready to take notes. "So, Vanaheim..."

"Hmm?" Loki had taken off the other glove and was clicking the pendant again. She was still wearing the sunglasses. Jane reached over and pulled them off. 

"Where is it?" 

"Vanaheim?"

"Yes, Vanaheim." Jane readied her pen.

"It's where it is. Just as Asgard is where Asgard is." Jane could practically hear the smirk.

She let out exasperated sigh. "Okay, but where is it relative to us or to Asgard? Is it close?"

Loki thought for a moment and then placed a hand out onto the table. She spread her fingers out wide and said, "Imagine a tree with roots down below..." She pointed to her elbow with her other hand and motioned up her arm. "A trunk and then branches up above." She wiggled her fingers.

"Traditionally, Midgard, is drawn in the center of the trunk." She tapped the center of her forearm. "Some of the less pleasant worlds are placed in the roots but Asgard and Vanaheim are found in the branches. Historically, the two of them have fought for the position of the crowning world for ages but, for all of my life, Asgard has reigned supreme.” She shrugged. “I can’t honestly say how close Vanaheim is or isn’t. Your units mean very little to me.” 

When she noticed that Jane was sketching a tree onto a napkin she listed the nine notable realms and helped Jane spell them. Their food arrived and Jane carefully set the sketch aside so it wouldn't get dirty.

"Have you been to all of these places?"

"Not officially. Travel to certain realms is strictly forbidden. But I do like to have fun."

"So, you've been to Vanaheim?"

"Vanaheim is closed to everyone as per the treaty that ended the last war between Asgard and Vanaheim. The two realms exchanged hostage-ambassadors, such as my mother among them, and some other valuables. Then Vanaheim isolated itself. They are not to leave their world or challenge Asgard and in return we are not to enter their realm without explicit permission from the ruler of Vanaheim."

Jane took a bite of toast and thought for a moment. "Maybe my mom is one of the ambassadors?"

Loki shook her head. "They're all well accounted for and kept close. It's more likely that she is simply a woman after my own heart." Jane wondered what her mom was like. Her dad had always described her as “a woman with a mission” but he also said that she was sweet in her own way. “May I have my hand back?”

Jane looked down. She had placed her hand on top of Loki’s “tree” without even noticing. She pulled away. “Sorry. Habit,” she mumbled. Loki nodded and smirked. Jane looked away quickly. It occurred to Jane that she had never seen Loki so lighthearted before. She wasn't sure what to make of it.

"You know, we could have the foundation of another war on our hands here," Loki said, lightly. 

"Will I get in trouble?"

"Oh, no, I'll protect you, little Jane." She put an arm around Jane and smiled. Jane squinted at her. _You'd sell me in a second._

As if she heard the thought, Loki said in mock pain, "Really, Jane. You're suspicion hurts."

Jane smiled. "It doesn't matter. I can't get in trouble if no one finds out anyway. And unless you're father is eavesdropping right now or if we figure out how to get you home, no one will find out."

Loki's smirk seemed to falter for a second but only just barely. "It's not impossible that he is eavesdropping. The Allfather has eyes and ears across the nine realms." The pendant made a particularly loud snap. Loki held it up. The triangles were now arranged closer together and each one enclosed a circle. As Loki brought the pendant closer to Jane, a rod of metal turned inside of one of the circles. "I believe that this might be a compass of sorts, among other things. There must be gateway to Vanaheim on this rock. Perhaps your mother hoped that you would find it."

Jane pushed her plate away and touched the pendant. "Do you think you can figure out how to use it?"

"I think we can."

"We?" She fixed her eyes on Loki. "What--of substance--could I possibly offer?"

"Ah, Jane, there's no need to be so hard on yourself. I'm certain you'll think of something." She gave Jane a tight squeeze. "Uh-huh." Jane rolled her eyes but smiled anyway. Something else came to her mind. "Wait. What about the hammer?"

"What of it?"

"I really doubt your brother sent his 'pride and joy' down here to taunt you."

"You don't know him." Loki was still smiling but her tone dropped dangerously.

"I know. But don't you think it's weird that he hasn't fetched it yet if he loves it so much?"

Loki sighed. "I suppose. Perhaps-" The next words seemed painful. "Perhaps he does mean well. Or perhaps he is facing his own punishment. He wasn’t blameless, after all." She shifted in her seat. "However, the fact remains that I can't lift the hammer. I have no idea what I'm meant to do with it, if I'm meant to do anything at all." She leaned down and looked into Jane’s eyes. "In any event, I prefer to make my own path. Don't you, Jane?"

Jane didn’t pull away but she couldn’t hold Loki’s gaze. She looked down and focused on the small scar on her lip. It seemed strange to her that Loki wanted to bring her along when she had been preparing to leave just hour before. But the possibilities flooded her mind. This was an amazing opportunity. If she could find a gate and figure out how to translate the technology into something that humans could use... It would change everything. Everything. This was more than she had ever hoped for. The consequences, both good and bad, would be huge. Fears of war and of S.H.I.E.L.D. came to mind. But everything carried risks. And given what was already happening with Iron Man, and now Loki, it didn’t seem like Earth would be able to run away from risks for much longer. She took a deep breath and nodded. 

"Very good. We should return home. I'll need to bring you up to speed. We should leave town before our thieving friends come looking for us."

 _Bring me up to speed._ Jane's eyes grew wide and she rushed to register before Loki even finished speaking. She needed to get back to her lab right now before Loki changed her mind. She started taking mental inventory of all the equipment she had left and started sorting it out into what she needed to take with them and what could be left behind. She hadn't even noticed that she had left her napkin-notes behind until Loki handed them to her in the SUV. She grinned and bobbed in her seat the whole drive back.


End file.
